When I was a young reporter on a Scottish newspaper, the sun vanished. It happened as I was approaching a Clydeside shipyard where shop stewards had called a 24-hour strike. One minute the sun was blazing from blue skies, and the next it was obliterated by the hull of a gigantic ship rising from John Brown’s yard like a Biblical revelation — a 20th-century Noah’s Ark of riveted iron and steel.

It was a vision of colossal grandeur and, as I stood gaping at the scale and beauty of it, a worker said: “We’re oot the day, laddie, but we’ll be back, and she’ll be the best one yet.” You could hear the pride in his voice, and he was right.

When the Queen Elizabeth 2 was launched in September, 1967, she was destined to become a ship of superlatives. Four decades later she is still the fastest non-military ship afloat (she can travel faster backwards than most cruise ships can move forwards) and has travelled farther than any other ship. At the last count she had logged more than 5.6 million miles, the equivalent of 12 journeys to the moon and back.

In the process, she has become an icon of a lost age, when Britain made the finest ships in the world. The last in an illustrious heritage of transatlantic liners, she has barely six months left as the grande dame of the Cunard fleet before retiring to Dubai as a floating hotel and entertainment venue. A measure of the esteem and affection in which she is held is that her final voyage from Southampton in November sold out in 36 minutes.

A 40th-anniversary cruise last September — billed as “a lap of honour” around Britain — was also fully booked months in advance and, from a rousing send-off at Southampton by the band of the Royal Marines to a celebration concert at Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral, it was a voyage of pride, nostalgia and sadness.

The military band in red tunics and white pith helmets set the tone with a repertoire of patriotic spine-tinglers as the QE2 slipped her lines to a chorus of popping champagne corks on the sundeck and a fireboat spraying plumes of water high into the air off our stern.

Her pedigree was apparent as we cruised past the Isle of Wight, followed by a modern cruise ship. We were barely a mile, yet a world, apart: the long, sleek profile of a thoroughbred ocean liner slicing through the waves in sharp contrast with the multi-decked floating holiday resort wallowing in her wake.

This is a ship whose regular passengers fall somewhere between a faithful fan club and an extended family. “You feel an emotion on this ship you don’t get on any other,” confided Carole Williams, a retired education consultant from Norwich. “She’s a British legend, and this is our last chance to sail on her. We feel fortunate to be part of history.”

Her husband, David, agreed: “It’s the end of an era. They don’t build ships like this any more.”

Viscount Christopher Wright, sporting a tie emblazoned with Union flags and a red rose in his buttonhole, summed up the general mood as we powered serenely through a near gale in the Dover Straits: “She makes you proud to be British.”

Distinguished guests included Ronald Warwick, a former QE2 master, who had an interesting encounter with a hurricane on a transatlantic crossing in 1995. Having avoided the worst of it, he was appalled to see the approach of a “rogue” wave almost 100 feet high. Later he wrote in his log: “It looked as though the ship was heading straight for the white cliffs of Dover.” All that happened when the wave broke with phenomenal power over the bow was that the ship shuddered and carried on, with many of the passengers unaware of the incident.

“She shrugged it off. She was built to handle rough weather,” he concluded.

Happily, hurricanes and rogue waves are fairly rare off Yorkshire and the only event of note as we cruised north was the arrival of Sir Jimmy Savile in a fishing boat from Scarborough.

His unorthodox approach was announced by Captain Ian McNaught, who intimated that, weather permitting, he would do his best to “fix it for Jimmy”. In the event, he had to bring us to a halt to allow Sir Jimmy to scramble on to a rope ladder, to a ragged cheer from passengers. He could have boarded the ship at Southampton, but that’s showbusiness.

Newcastle had waited 40 years to welcome the QE2 to the Tyne and it waited patiently for a few hours more after strong winds delayed our arrival. When eventually we passed the breakwater it was the signal for a fusillade of fireworks, a cacophony of hooting from a flotilla of yachts, ferries, dinghies and the local lifeboat, and cheering and flag-waving from tens of thousands of spectators crowding quays, bridges, streets and rooftops. The QE2 responded with deep, resonant blasts of her distinctive whistle and a blizzard of fluttering Union flags handed out to passengers for the occasion.

It was an exuberant celebration of national pride on a river that had built great Cunarders such as Carpathia — the saviour of Titanic survivors — but that, like the Clyde, had seen the shipbuilding life ebb out of it. Next day the local newspaper, The Journal, captured the sense of occasion with the headline: “The day the boat came in.”

Shore excursions were hardly the main attraction of this voyage, but our next port of call, at South Queensferry, on the Firth of Forth, offered an opportunity to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia, moored at Leith. Designed more as a floating country house than a palace, it still has in its drawing-room the baby grand piano at which Noël Coward entertained guests ranged on floral print sofas and armchairs. It was the one place, the Queen observed, where she could enjoy privacy and truly relax.

The service on Britannia was no doubt impeccable, but it could not have been appreciably superior to that on QE2. From the start she has been a class act and maître d’s in her silver-service restaurants are determined to keep it that way until the end.

Dress codes apply throughout the ship from 6pm and are strictly enforced. The most relaxed code requires gentlemen to wear shirts and jackets, the only concession being that ties are not obligatory.

It is said that, over the years, the QE2 has had more facelifts than Liz Taylor, who once famously drove aboard her in a white Rolls-Royce. From a rather brash child of the Sixties, the ship has matured into a stately lady, staging Ascot Balls in the Queen’s Room and nostalgic “Swinging Sixties” concerts in the Grand Lounge that end with the audience on their feet singing You’ll Never Walk Alone.

James Murray, who supervises waiting staff in the Mauretania Restaurant and has been with the QE2 since her maiden voyage, rising from commis waiter to the lofty heights of maître d’, has seen the likes of James Cagney, Dame Vera Lynn and the Sultan of Selanghor being fêted at glittering banquets. He recalls the wife of the US Army General Lewis Hershey coming to dinner wearing $7 million worth of jewels, because she felt it was the only place left in the world she could wear them.

After Queen Mary was retired to Long Beach, California, James went to visit her and was saddened by what he saw. “The Queen Mary had a soul, but it was gone. Only the shell was left. There was no warmth in her. I hope the same doesn’t happen to QE2.”

It is a common sentiment among passengers who regard the QE2 as a second home. So far, Leonard Carson of London has completed 10 world cruises and 16 transatlantic crossings, and he has secured a prized stateroom for her final voyage. “It’s the staff that make her special,” he says. “They always welcome you as if you’re coming home. We’ll all miss her very much, the regulars.”

The point was taken up by Carol Thatcher, daughter of the former prime minister, who was on board to sign copies of a souvenir QE2 book and was warmly applauded when she told a packed auditorium: “I think she could have gone on sailing for a while yet. The British have a knack of getting rid of icons too early, like Concorde.”

Happily, a surviving British icon, the RAF Red Arrows, turned out to welcome the QE2 home on the Firth of Clyde on her 40th birthday, roaring out of clouds over the Cowal hills to thrill spectators with their high-speed aerobatics.

Among local dignitaries invited to an anniversary lunch at Greenock was an elderly man with indelible memories. As a machine shop foreman, Ross McLelland supervised the fitting of the QE2’s propeller shafts in John Brown’s yard; this was the first time he had set foot on her since they began turning.

His father had helped to build the Queen Mary, and he had worked on Caronia and Britannia, but the QE2 was always special. “It was the size and beauty of her. Even men who worked on her day in, day out were impressed when they saw what they were building.

“It annoys me she’s not staying in Britain. Queen Mary is a hotel in California, Queen Elizabeth is lying at the bottom of Hong Kong harbour and we have not been left with any remembrance of these great ships. I feel closer to the QE2 than any other ship...” At this, Mr McLelland’s voice broke, his eyes became moist and he apologised for “feeling a wee bit sentimental”.

Another emotional farewell awaited in Liverpool, the erstwhile HQ of Cunard, where the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir joined the Band of the Scots Guards in stirring renditions of Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory that soared to the rafters of the Anglican Cathedral amid a flurry of Union flags.

Heaven knows what the final voyage will be like. One imagines Lord Patten of Barnes carrying off the QE2’s masthead flag at Dubai to a crescendo of skirling bagpipes.

Cunard, now owned by the Miami-based Carnival Corporation, says the investment arm of the Dubai government made an offer it could not refuse, of $100 million and assurances that the QE2 would continue to be treated like royalty as Queen of the Desert.

But a ship comes alive only at sea and, no matter how much attention is lavished on her, Britain’s last great transatlantic liner will be no more than a hotel and tourist attraction far from home.

When the Scots Guards concluded the Liverpool concert with the traditional air Will ye no’ come back again?, it had special pathos.

The last sailings

The QE2’s farewell voyage around Britain in October is sold out, as is her final voyage to Dubai on November 11. Her last east and west transatlantic crossings in October are also sold out, but cabins are still available on cruises around Europe and the Mediterranean, and on a three-week voyage around New England in September that includes transatlantic crossings.

There is availability on cruises to the Mediterranean on July 2 from £1,777, Holland and Belgium on July 17 from £1,070, the Mediterranean on July 20 from £1,726, Iceland and Norway on July 31 from £2,823, the Mediterranean on August 12 from £1,569, France and Spain on August 22 from £1,174, the Mediterranean on August 27 from £2,047, New England (with transatlantic crossings) on September 10 from £3,397, and France and Spain on October 22 from £1,084.